Advancements in technology are disrupting the function and design of industrial real estate. Since these advancements are believed to be exponential, perhaps to an extent, the industrial real estate of tomorrow promises to be very different than today. Technologies such as autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, robotics, and the internet of things (IoT) exist and will disrupt industrial real estate and supply chain. However, with exponential advancements in technology disruption the future of industrial real estate is very likely to be disrupted by new technological silos which do not exist today.

Lighting is a critical component of today's supply chain real estate. The use of light, whether artificial or natural, affects the costs, labor, compliance and environmental elements of an industrial operation. Therefore, facility decision makers and designers should have a keen awareness of how light is employed in their facilities.

We found that the bay and column spacing within a warehouse can have a significant impact on key performance indicators (KPIs) for warehouse occupiers in ways that are not always obvious. In this post I discuss bays and column spacing in a warehouse and why they are important for supply chain real estate participants to consider when a) designing a new warehouse location and/or b) perhaps re-designing an existing warehouse.

Assuming the acre is functional in shape, meaning closer to a square than a bowling alley, estimates typically range from 34-40 trailers per acre with no truck cab.

The second point to make is that as the land increases in size, the number of trailers that can typically be stored per acre goes up. For example, my team is marketing an 8 acre land parcel and a space engineering firm created a layout with 394 trailer parking spots for a total of 49 trailers per acre, with 23 trailers spots double stacked.

For most experts, all KPIs are metrics but not all metrics are KPIs.  In order for a metric to be a KPI it must measure how well a company is meeting its objectives.  For example, a metric measuring cost of inventory in transit would be a KPI to a company trying to reduce their inventory holding costs.